Takahe’s Solo Den: Vinhos Deluxe Edition

1 - 4 Players 60 - 135 Minutes Age: 14+
Designer: Vital Lacerda
Artist: Ian O’Toole
Publisher: Eagle-Gryphon Games

Luxury goods

Vital Lacerda is a designer best known for his lavishly produced Euros, each one usually costing an arm and leg to acquire. The high price-tag of Lacerda games is, therefore, a pretty significant detractor for many gamers as paying double the price for essentially a different looking Euro, is hard to swallow for many of us. However, once you try any of his games, you will understand why do they cost so much and why are they worth it.

For the longest time, as predominantly a medium to heavy weight Euro-gamer, I was staying away from Lacerda games – I just could not justify getting 1 Lacerda vs. 2-3 similarly amazing, yet cheaper alternatives. But, getting at least one was simply an inevitability. And so, it eventually happened, and I got myself a brand-new copy of Kanban EV. And I was insta-blown away. Blown away so much that I made a vow to get all of his games, one at a time. Since you are reading these impressions of mine, you already know, which Lacerda game joined my collection next.

Vinhos, a medium to heavy Euro game about making and selling wine in Portugal, is -what I would describe- a “more matured (or more aged? 😊)” version of Viticulture. Both games are worker placement affairs, in both games you are tasked to expand your winery and produce wine, and in both games you need to fulfil orders and accumulate victory points. However, the Stonemaier title is most definitely the more accessible of the two, with easy-to-follow rules and gameplay not really offering a lot of space for crunchy decision making due to the frequent and swingy card draws – you simply plant vines, produce wine, and depending on your luck, play cards and fulfil orders.

Boutique wine-making

On the other hand, Vinhos -despite looking deceptively light and straightforward- will definitely give your brain a solid workout. And it’s not because of the rules or tons of actions you can potentially take. The core objective is as simple as it is in Viticulture – score as many victory points as possible, either through exporting wine overseas or through winning wine fairs that take place every couple of rounds.

The core gameplay is also as simple as it is in Viticulture – you move your worker on 3x3 grid to activate a particular action, many of which are similar or very reminiscent to those in Stonemaier winemaking game. You can acquire new grape varieties for your estates, you can build wineries, you can hire workers to increase the value of your wine, you can hire wine experts to help you with scoring, sell wine to local market or (as mentioned already) export it abroad for some nice and chunky VPs… each action is very straightforward to execute.

Weather at the centre of decision making…

The meatiness of this game lies elsewhere. For starters, each season (of which there are 6 in total) begins with a weather forecast that increases/decreases the value of wine produced that particular season – so even before you’re allowed to take actions, your strategy might go out in flames, and you are forced to re-evaluate your plan. I love this “tactical” nature of unpredictable weather – it forces me to not put all my bets on a single strategy but have a few back-up ones in play as well.

Weather forecast, however, is not the only thing you learn at the beginning of each season. You will also learn what type of wine judges prefer at that season’s fair, from what region and of what quality; and what types of experts will help you score more points (there are 4 types, each judging wine differently – by taste, by smell, looks etc.). This information is VITAL (Lacerda? 😊) for your efforts as the only way to get additional barrels (you start only with 2 and you need them for both local, and overseas export) is to submit wine to fair that meets at least some of the criteria of the 4 judges.

Every action matters

Now, imagine you have a nice and well-established winery producing a solid quality red. You draw a weather tile with a very favourable weather conditions (adding +2 to the quality of wine that season)…however, judges prefer white wine this season, and from a region you only have a one grape variety in your portfolio. Of course, nothing is stopping you from submitting your high-quality red for fair judging, but you will miss out on additional barrels.

So, you have to do some crunchy evaluation: will you invest into expanding your white wine production this season to fully utilise the good weather and at the end of the round, submit your white for judging? Or will you continue improving production of your good quality red, hoping for the next season to be in favour of that wine colour? Or will you just ignore both and expand your estate by planting more grapes and producing more wine in general (handy for exports and getting money which also score you VPs)?

As you can see, the meaty decisions you have to make, are not based on the “heaviness” of the game mechanisms, rather than on how you want to optimise your production and maximise the resulting benefits and profits.

Simple, elegant and challenging solo

Talking about fairs and scoring VPs leads us inevitably to the competitive aspect of this game, in solo terms, to the solo bot. Vinhos (talking about the latest version with 2-sided board) comes with a very easy to run automa called Lacerda – 2 decks of cards, one for action selection and the other one for choosing the corresponding spots/locations/items for solo bot. Depending on the turn order, Lacerda draws 2 action cards and does his thing, afterwards it is players turn to do their 2 actions.

Here comes a twist though – Lacerda’s deck of action cards does not get reshuffled until the end of each fair, so at least during the first one (each fair season get’s progressively shorter, last one only taking one round, meaning 2 actions per player) you have a pretty good idea what might be coming your way and hence, act accordingly. So for instance, you have produced a good quality wine and haven’t yet seen Lacerda doing his overseas export – maybe you should do it first to claim some juicy VPs? Because if you wait too long, he will do it himself, claiming more export spots and even getting majorities which will score him even more at the end of the game.

I have to admit – Lacerda is a tough opponent to beat, but it is certainly beatable. And it all comes down to how you optimise and prioritise your actions. For instance, in my first few games I was totally concentrating on winning fairs… and ignoring exports. Despite me winning all of those fairs, I got crushed. So, I have decided to do both, maybe ignore one of the fairs in favour of overseas exports… and I got crushed again, however this time, the scoring difference was very small (I lost by a few VPs).

Adding a carefully selected purple scoring tiles (and you need a free barrel to “reserve” them!) finally led to my victory. BUT. Next game, I have put too much hope on a good weather, which never happened… and because of that, lost two out of three fairs. Not because the bot was cheating (although he does a bit but not in a super-frustrating way), but because I shouldn’t have waited for a good weather and instead, should have just invested into cellars, workers etc that would have mitigated the crap forecast.

Addiction factor to the max

Despite being a heavy-ish game, Vinhos is certainly more accessible than Kanban EV. The game is still as beautifully produced as Kanban EV, however a much quicker setup, more straight-forward rules and generally a less complex underlying mechanisms make this one a better option for your casual, day-to-day gaming.

Plus, because each game lasts only 6 rounds (2 actions per player per round, plus bonus ones if you get the bonus tiles), each session of Vinhos plays really fast, which means you can easily do two sessions in 1.5 hours. Which is what I tend to do when playing this game 😊. I just find the gameplay immensely satisfying and enjoyable, not too sluggish or dragging, and ultimately addictive enough to keep on playing. Vinhos is simply another fantastic Lacerda euro for anyone solo-positive.